The Underground: Lazy Days
by Omicron the IceQueen
Summary: Story for Manic, his brother has speed, and to a far lesser degree so does he. Yet it takes a moment of peace for Manic to realize he has more to offer The Underground then breaking and entering skills.


Queen's notes: Imma gonna mess with you're feels in the end, but have a epic moment for Manic. This ties in with my old 'The Underground' story that's being rewritten

 **Lazy Days**

It was almost like a dream, this place that he had found, though there were several places around the Great Forest that could be described like that. The Zone was so large and old it hid not only Haven and Foster Hill, but so many other places from the power-stone pool to many hidden grottos in the forest.

Like this place that Manic found himself in, admits the trunks of the ancient trees deep in the Zone. There was a thick layer of bioluminescent moss and ferns only found deeper in the forest. They decorated the ground and trunks around Manic in shades of blue and pale white with some swaying green ferns in the slight breeze. The hedgehog shifted and looked further upwards to see some fainter amber glowing of hard mushrooms- those things were good for making medical stuff if he remembered right. Something Lara made for them to put on cuts and scrapes when in Robotropolis, or in general. Manic had some of the thick cream in his pack, and debated on getting some of the mushrooms for when he made his way home.

Manic flicked an ear at that thought, listing to the faint click of his newest piercing against the others. He couldn't feel his right ear at all between getting stitches and the new, near loop. The green furred male smiled though, sighing as he reached up to gently feel over the edges of his right ear. Bare fingers feeling lightly on the spot with the fine stitches, Lara the healer had done the best she could, there would still be a slice missing.

"Better to lose a few piercings and a bit of ear then to be robotized..." The hedgehog sighed, his finger slid down the edge of his ear, to the new bit of metal. Fireflies were out in force, so there was a decent amount of light for being under the canopy and in the middle of the night. Manic was tempted to take the half loop out to look at it again but stopped himself, the ear needed to heal first.

Besides, if Sonic could live with the weight since before Manic met him, and not take it off every few minutes to look at the clan marker, then so could Manic!

It was a few minutes later when Manic took the loop off to star at it wonderingly again. He knew it wasn't just solid silver, but coated in the metal, the loop was made with thin crystal- that living crystal that was the same as his pendent and reacted to the royal bloodlines. Manic still wasn't sure how it worked, but he admired the glimpses of the faintly glowing stone, and the tiny inlayed gems. It was a code he was still learning, but it was almost identical to Sonic's loop. Only instead of a dark green chip of emerald he had a dragon blood drop shade of sapphire.

The lost prince- and it was so strange to think that even now that he, _Manic_ was of the real royal bloodline. He was just a thief, a _really good thief_ truth be told, and an illegal musician... and now he was a freedom fighter, someone who might have to lead more than the kids of the his...former thieves guild–clan.

Manic sighed, laying back in the grass and moss, staring upwards at the loop he held and the moving glow of bugs further up. After a bit the hedgehog anthro fitting the loop back into place gently, the aware of the new weight on the numbed ear. He flopped his arms out, a picture of sprawled laziness for now as blue eyes half lidded with another deep breath.

The hedgehog yawned, hitting an interested state of tired but not tired. Manic felt he could nod off in this quite spot, not completely quiet as the light-bugs buzzed and chirped. So it wasn't too quiet, that level that Manic couldn't stand, but...

Manic blinked his eyes open as he realized he felt _safe_ here.

With a lifetime of always being on guard, it was so strange to realize this, but it left Manic relaxing his still sore muscles into the moss. The male half closed his eyes before the lids drifted closed. He was tired but not sleepy, and soon found himself drifting into a trance like state as he focused on the feeling of first his stitches, then the metal piercings and his other jewelry. Then he became aware that the crystal of his new loop... _felt_ _different_.

It was alike to how Manic could get a sense of a lock, the differences in metals of the tumblers of a lock on a container, or gears in a security door. Even being able to tell where the small thin copper sheets in the key-code locks that were under the most used keys.

Manic shifted and stretched out his arms wide, and then his bare fingers dug into the moss and then the dirt under it. He relaxed his senses again before slowly focusing on what was under him. The dirt...earth, the little pockets that were pebbles of stone- mostly all one kind. He could tug on one stone with his senses, and as it felt like it moved there was a pulse that echoed not just in his medallion and the loop- but from in Manic's own core.

Not just the chest his own true core of who he was. That eternal beat of drums that was more than a hear beat, or the rhythm of one life. This was something deep, old, so very old it was beyond ancient that was thrummed with the contentment of supporting life. That moved in a slow, steady but never stopping pace to rise mountain, birth volcano and concave the surface. It was a hundred thousand beats that blended into one amassing pulse of life below.

That life that wasn't alive, but...yet it was life... what he and all other stood on or rooted in.

Then, Manic became aware of something for only the briefest of moments. A sudden thunderous crack and grind of the seismic scale. Of the plate _shifting_ and then unbearable and unbreathable _heat_ -

 _Hello son of the earth-_

"What the frag!" Manic jolted awake and upright, his frame shivering hard enough to rattle quills for a few moments. Like his body was trying to shake free from the memory and trance. The hedgehog pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, making himself take deep breaths against the rocking shuttering feeling. Like the world was shaking even though Manic knew he only stood up far too fast.

The anthro plopped down gracelessly to his knees so not to fall over completely. Taking another deeper breath Manic held it against the hazy sensation in his head and let it out slowly as he pushed his hands up to run fingers through ruffled quills. Manic pushed his wild clumps into a semi order before looking up into a coppery tinted world.

Manic's jaw dropped, freezing in place as he looked around himself in the grotto that was now almost all in shades of bronze, copper and tarnished gold. Everything from the trees to the leaves hovering- stuck?- in the air, to the pebbles rotating where they levitated like the larger chunks of earth and stone were. A piece of mushroom that was breaking off stayed still in the air where that one left over thread thin connection should have given out.

"What is this?" Manic asked aloud as he stood up, wavered and caught himself on a hand sized, rough oval of rock near him. The male paused, pressed down on that hovering stone but it stayed in place until Manic tapped it lightly, wanting it to move. He lifted his hand an focused on the bizarre glow coming off himself. Like an arura of energy field but... it wasn't that it was... "Its me," Manic realized looking over himself, finding the glow reflected green from his own fur, fading to colorless away from his body.

The hedgehog looked up and around, stepping forward as he examined the world, finding this strange stillness not alarming. Asif it were natural somehow, like Manic had been told about it.

He _had_ been told about this actually.

"Sonic, is this what you see?" Manic wondered, remembering when Sonic tried to explain what he saw, how he saw the world going at such high speeds and more. "He said the color bleeds out, fades… I thought he meant black and white." Manic muttered reaching the touch a leaf suspended in the air, then flicked it and winced as he got a paper cut. He was sucking on his finger tip when it hit him.

This was how Sonic saw the world, this is what his twin, his brother saw when moving so fast. Moving at speeds so fast the smallest leaves could hurt if not buffered by something- wind? Energy?

The color drained out from under Manic's fur, the insides of his ears going pale as he saw things were still moving for him, if slower than slow. How could Sonic stand this? How many times had his brother slammed into something quills first to open doors, to cut his way through barricades and war mechs? What had only looked like a few times, manic was starting to grasp must be much more. How many times had he caught Sonic and pushed the blue male up onto his own shoulders to support his gasping air starved brother?

Manic was never teasing his brother again.

Manic lowered his hand, caught movement and looked up again. Hesitantly the male lifted a hand as he stared at the larger chuck of earth, with some rocks and wood sticking out the lower side, and moss on the upper. He could feel the connection, a curling field that was his but displaced, and as he moved his hand that hovering chuck moved in time. Swaying left and right, back down and to the left as some shades of brown and green started to come back.

"Son of the earth?" Manic mused out loud, not sure where he heard that, and started to smile as he felt his geokinesis abilities shake loose fully. The male felt like he could truly _breath_ for the first time, far more than that first time he had ever left Robotropolis.

He could feel the earth, the rock, even the metal spikes on his own loose cloths. All the stones and earthen chunks he had control over, he could move them as he stepped around, a smiling forming. He lifted his hands, taking deep breaths as the night time colors all returned to his sight, but he could still hold the earth up or slam it all down.

Manic froze, took a slow even breath and eased his shoulders down. It took more focus then he would have thought, but Manic managed to put the earth back down from where they had been pulled out. He looked around, grinning now before pumping a fist into the hair, snatching a few pebbles out of the air and running out of the grotto with full intentions of hugging his brother and showing what he could do.

The faint green glow faded, and the smaller rocks dropped out of the air, but for three that were caught in a new glow. One that reflected a lilac color as a thin female hedgehog came out from behind a tree, one hand out stretch to pull the pebbles over to her. Her other hand clutched the cloak that was only half on her as she took a shaky breath, the worn, common traveling cloths visible, as well as the patches on the legs and jacket.

"Manic, oh my son," The older hedgehog anthro whispered, her own onyx colored eyes watering as she stared after, thankful and hating he was so new to his ability that he hadn't sensed her, "My lost prince, my boy... my Prince of the Earth." She held the small rocks against her chest, unable to help the swelling pride in her heart as she looked up.

Tears of joy rolled down her cheeks, realizing that one of her children had taken after her.

Tears of sorrow and pain flowed down her cheeks just as fast, as she knew her love and husband might never see these moments.

The Lost Queen moved slower after until she could distantly hear Manic and Sonic's voices. Aleena closed her eyes, wishing soon she could hear her daughter's voice in the distance as well.


End file.
